The Mīmāṃsāka doctrine of "svatah prāmānya" has seldom been given the serious philosophical attention it deserves. This doctrine in fact grows out of a sophisticated critique of epistemological foundationalism. This critique, as well as the larger project that it serves, has striking similarities with the philosophical project advanced in William Alston's "Perceiving God". A comparison of the two helps to highlight the strengths and the problems of both projects, and shows, perhaps more importantly, that the Mīmāṃsāka doctrine is in fact (...) still relevant, as it resembles one of the more interesting positions currently in play in contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

Rāmānujācārya’s Tantrarahasya, a philosophical treatise mainly dedicated to the hermeneutics and epistemology of the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā School, might be considered hardly more than a jigsaw of reused passages, since one third of it has a direct source, and a further third has its roots in interlanguage usage. It is thus a perfect case study for investigating the compositional habits of philosophical authors in pre-modern śāstra literature. The article analyses the formal aspects of textual reuse by Rāmānujācārya and draws (...) some general conclusions regarding the author’s intellectual affiliation to Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā on the basis of the way he reuses his school’s texts as compared to the reuse of other schools’ texts. A final section discusses the possibility of generalising these results to the approach to textual reuse of the whole Pūrva Mīmāṃsā. (shrink)

Psychological stress can be both a help and a hindrance to wellbeing and performance in sport. The provision and receipt of social support is a key resource for managing adaptations to stress. However, extant literature in this area is largely limited to the recipient’s perspective of social support. Furthermore, social support is not always effective, with evidence suggesting it can contribute to positive, negative, and indifferent adaptations to stress. As such, we do not know how social support influences adaptations to (...) stress in sport. The social identity approach may explain how social support can lead to both positive and negative adaptations to stress. Our purpose in this study was to explore how social support and social identities influence adaptations to stress in a Rugby Academy Programme. Using qualitative methods within a naturalistic research paradigm, semi-structured interviews were conducted with Rugby Academy co-ordinators and players, and four focus groups were conducted with teams of support staff. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis, which generated seven sub-themes categorized into two higher-order analytical themes. Our results demonstrate that group-based perceptions of social support influence adaptations to stress. Specifically, whether social support influences positive, negative, or indifferent adaptations to stress depended on social factors influencing the nature of social support, and social factors influencing the provision and receipt of social support. These findings advance our understanding of how adaptations to stress are influenced by social support. Implications are offered for how organizations, teams, and practitioners can facilitate positive adaptations to stress in sport. (shrink)

The study of South Asian ethics presents a variety of problems for the comparative ethicist. This response focuses on one such problem relating to Hinduism: the pervasive use of nonsystematic lists as a source of ethical injunctions and guidelines. The author demonstrates how an indigenous hermeneutic may unpack a list that contains the gift of fearlessness among other gifts. The source of this interpretation is Purva Mimamsa, an ancient Indian school of philosophy that specialized in language and the application of (...) sacrificial logic to law and ethics. The same principles that allowed ritual specialists to sort out a huge array of rules into proper injunctions also allow us to make sense of ethical principles embodied in puzzling lists of concrete items. (shrink)

Within modern scholarship on Indian philosophy, religious studies, and Indology Purva-Mimamsa unfortunately features as a rather under-represented area. The present edition and translation of the Mimamsanyayasamgraha by James Benson is a most welcome exception in two respects: On the one hand it makes accessible the major premises and topics of Purva-Mimamsa to students and scholars in a rather simple and brief manner. On the other hand it represents the first translation of a work from the late 17th century, i.e. from (...) the "new school" of Purva-Mimamsa. So far no major texts from this period are available and little is known about the school's developments and changes in those times. Thus, besides providing a solid and understandable introduction to the system, this book will also be valuable to advanced students of Purva-Mimamsa interested in its newer branches. It will therefore be of use not only for Indologists, but also to students and scholars dealing with South Asian religions, ritual and intellectual history. (shrink)

The study of South Asian ethics presents a variety of problems for the comparative ethicist. This response focuses on one such problem relating to Hinduism: the pervasive use of nonsystematic lists as a source of ethical injunctions and guidelines. The author demonstrates how an indigenous hermeneutic may unpack a list that contains the gift of fearlessness among other gifts. The source of this interpretation is Pūrva Mīmāṃsā, an ancient Indian school of philosophy that specialized in language and the (...) application of sacrificial logic to law and ethics. The same principles that allowed ritual specialists to sort out a huge array of rules into proper injunctions also allow us to make sense of ethical principles embodied in puzzling lists of concrete items. (shrink)

Two Sanskrit texts focus new light on Prabhakara and Kumarila thoughts on Purva Mimamsa philosophy.

In _Buddhists, Brahmins, and Belief_, Dan Arnold examines how the Brahmanical tradition of Purva Mimamsa and the writings of the seventh-century Buddhist Madhyamika philosopher Candrakirti challenged dominant Indian Buddhist views of epistemology. Arnold retrieves these two very different but equally important voices of philosophical dissent, showing them to have developed highly sophisticated and cogent critiques of influential Buddhist epistemologists such as Dignaga and Dharmakirti. His analysis--developed in conversation with modern Western philosophers like William Alston and J. L. Austin--offers an innovative (...) reinterpretation of the Indian philosophical tradition, while suggesting that pre-modern Indian thinkers have much to contribute to contemporary philosophical debates. In logically distinct ways, Purva Mimamsa and Candrakirti's Madhyamaka opposed the influential Buddhist school of thought that emphasized the foundational character of perception. Arnold argues that Mimamsaka arguments concerning the "intrinsic validity" of the earliest Vedic scriptures are best understood as a critique of the tradition of Buddhist philosophy stemming from Dignaga. Though often dismissed as antithetical to "real philosophy," Mimamsaka thought has affinities with the reformed epistemology that has recently influenced contemporary philosophy of religion. Candrakirti's arguments, in contrast, amount to a principled refusal of epistemology. Arnold contends that Candrakirti marshals against Buddhist foundationalism an approach that resembles twentieth-century ordinary language philosophy--and does so by employing what are finally best understood as transcendental arguments. The conclusion that Candrakirti's arguments thus support a metaphysical claim represents a bold new understanding of Madhyamaka. (shrink)

The scope and audacity of Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita’s contributions to Sanskrit grammar has made him one of early-modern India’s most influential, if not controversial, intellectuals. Yet for as consequential as Bhaṭṭoji’s has been for histories of early-modern scholasticism, his extensive corpus of non-grammatical writings has attracted relatively little scholarly attention. This paper examines Bhaṭṭoji’s work on Vedānta, the Tattvakaustubha, in order to gage how issues of language became an increasingly important site of inter-religious critique among early-modern Vedāntins. In the Tattvakaustubha, Bhaṭṭoji (...) reproaches Madhvācārya, the founder of the eponymous Mādhva or Dvaita Vedānta system, for his use of ungrammatical words. In extending his accusations of grammatical negligence to include Madhva’s early commentator Jayatīrtha, Bhaṭṭoji sought to undermine Mādhva claims to authoritative scriptural exegesis. Bhaṭṭoji’s provocation impelled later Mādhva scholars like Rāghavendratīrtha to bring a sharper set of grammatical tools to core commentarial works. Where others have pointed to Vyāsatīrtha as a turning point for Mādhva scholastic discourse in the areas of Pūrva Mīmāṃsā and Navya Nyāya, this paper suggests that it was the post-Bhaṭṭoji scholar Rāghavendratīrtha who brought a hitherto unrivaled grammatical expertise to Mādhva writings. That both Mādhva and Advaita Vedāntins wielded grammatical legitimacy as a cudgel against the other raises important socio-historical questions about the relationship between text-criticism, conceptions of scholastic legitimacy, and inter-religious contestation in early-modern South Asia. (shrink)

The Book Discusses The Problems Raised By The Classical Systems Like Carvaka, Jain, Buddhism, Nyaya, Vaisesika, Samkhya, Yoga, Purva Mimamsa And Vedanta. It Establishes Epistemological, Metaphysical And Axiological Significance Of Indian Philosophy, Offering A Unique Insight.

This Book Is The Result Of Intensive And Critical Study Of The Different Aspects Of Indian Epistemology Viz. The Nyaya Theory Of Perception, Some Problems Of Meaning In Purva-Mimamsa And Vedanta, Problem Of Vyapti According To Jaina-Logicians And Vallabhacarya Etc.

Ethics and the History of Indian Philosophy (Motilal Banarsidass 2007). Regretfully, it is not an uncommon view in orthodox Indology that Indian philosophers were not interested in ethics. This claim belies the fact that Indian philosophical schools were generally interested in the practical consequences of beliefs and actions. The most popular symptom of this concern is the doctrine of karma, according to which the consequences of actions have an evaluative valence. Ethics and the History of Indian Philosophy argues that the (...) orthodox view in Indology concerning Indian ethics is false. The first half the book deals with theoretical issues in studying ethics: defining moral terms, understanding the subject matter of ethics so as to transcend culturally specific substantive commitments and touches upon issues of cross-cultural hermeneutics and translation. The second half consists of a systematic explication of the moral philosophical aspects of nine major Indian philosophical schools. I argue that “dharma” in its various uses in Indian philosophy is always rationally treated as a moral term—even in so called “ontological” employments of the term as seen in Buddhism and Jainism. In understanding “dharma” in this manner, the Indian philosophical tradition is replete with different versions of moral realism that fit tidily with other philosophical commitments of Indian philosophers. Pains are taken to show the breath of moral philosophical disagreement in this tradition. On a comparative note, some Indian moral philosophy resembles realist approaches of the Western tradition (such as the Non-natural realism of Neo-Platonism, or the Naturalism of Utilitarianism). Out of the major Indian philosophical schools, a slim minority are shown to be committed to moral irrealism while some are shown to regard their entire philosophical orientation as firmly planted within moral philosophy (such as Jainism, Buddhism, Purva Mimamsa and Yoga). In response to those who would argue that what Indian philosophers meant by “dharma” is very different from what moral philosophers in the West have meant by “ethical” or “good,” I argue that this is as vacuous as noting that Utilitarians have a different conception of the good from Deontologists. If philosophy is concerned with theoretical debate, as I argue it is, philosophical terms function to articulate such disagreements. The various seemingly desperate uses of “dharma” in the Indian tradition are no longer confusing or disorderly when we understand the theoretico-philosophical function of this term in Indian philosophical disputes. -/- The second edition contains an additional chapter that addresses the colonial and political context of the study of Indian Ethics. (shrink)

On Jaina, Bauddha, Nyaya, Vaiśeṣika, Sankhya, Yoga, Purva-Mimamsa and Vedānta systems of Indic philosophy.

This book introduces the vast topic of Indian philosophy. It begins with a study of the major Upanishads, and then surveys the philosophical ideas contained in the Bhagavadgita. After a short excursion into Buddhism, it summarizes the salient ideas of the six systems of Indian philosophy: Nyaya, Vaisesika, Samkhya, Yoga, Purva Mimamsa, and Vedanta. It concludes with an introduction to contemporary Indian thought.

Ovaj članak predstavlja tragove ranoga vedāntskog tumačenja Maitreyī-brāhmane, jednog od najpoznatijih dijelova Brhadāranyaka-upanišadi u Brahma-sūtrama, temeljnom tekstu filozofske škole vedānte. Predmet diskusije je egzegeza Maitreyī-brāhmane prema trima starodrevnim komentatorima Āśmarathyi, Audulomiu i Kāśakrtsni. Cilj je ovog rada pokazati kakve se metode tumačenja upanišadskih tekstova koriste u različitim vedāntskim školama. Također možemo vidjeti tehnike tumačenja preuzete iz pūrva-mīmāmse, škole tumačenja vedskih tekstova, koje su preoblikovane za tumačenje upanišadi. Članak također pokazuje kako filozofsko stajalište o odnosu sopstva i apsoluta služi egzegetskoj (...) svrsi pomirenja različitih upanišadskih učenja. Učenje BS i starodrevnih komentatora je bhedābhedavāda, istodobna različitost i nerazličitost sopstva i apsoluta. Śankara tumači sūtre kao da poučavaju monistički iluzionizam. On na dvije razine istine razlikuje niži brahman i najviši brahman. Na ovaj je način mogao pomiriti sva upanišadska učenja, bilo da naginjuteizmu ili monizmu. Važna je i hermeneutička rasprava Śankarina s bhedābhedavādinom Bhartrprapañcom o prirodi znanja i djelovanja, odnosno prvenstvu upanišadi koje se bave znanjem brahmana nad brāhmanama koje se bave obrednim djelovanjem.This article presents some traces of early vedāntic interpretations of Maitreyī-brāhmana, one of the most famous parts of Brhadāranyaka-upanishad, in the Brahma-sūtras, the fundamental work of the philosophical school vedānta. Topic under discussion conveys the exegesis of Maitreyī-brāhmana according to three ancient commentators, Āśmarathya, Audulomi and Kāśakrtsna. The purpose of this article is to show the methods of interpretation of upanishadic passages in different vedāntic schools. Also, we can see some techniques of interpretation taken from pūrva-mīmāmsa, the school of vedic interpretation, and adapted for upanishadic interpretation. The article shows how the main philosophical standpoint on the relation of the self and the absolute serves the exegetical purposes. So the standpoint of the BS and the ancient commentators is bhedābhedavāda, teaching of both the difference and non-difference between the self and the absolute, like sparks and fire. Śankara interprets the sūtras as teaching monistic illusionism. He also differentiates between the two levels of truth and accordingly the lower brahman and the highest brahman. In this way he was able to reconcile all upanishadic passages, whether they inclined to theism or monism. There is also an important hermeneutical discussion of Śankara with bhedābhedavādin Bhartrprapañca on the nature of knowledge and action and priority of the upanishads, part of sacred canon dealing with knowledge of brahman over the brāhmanas, which are dealing with ritual action. (shrink)

Madhusūdana Sarasvatī wrote several treatises on Advaita philosophy. His magnum opus is the Advaitasiddhi, written in order to reply to the keen objections moved by the Dvaitin Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmṛta. Advaitasiddhi is verily a turning point into the galaxy of Vedānta, not only as far as its replies are concerned, but also for the reutilization of earlier vedāntic material and its reformulation by means of the highly sophisticated language of the new school of logic. This article is an attempt to contextualize (...) Madhusūdana’s works in a broader context through three looking glasses: the analysis of how Madhusūdana refers to his own works, in order to reconstruct a relative chronology among them; Madhusūdana’s adherence to the tenets of the previous Advaita tradition, how much he is indebted to Vyāsatīrtha, how he quotes him and how he replies to him; Madhusūdana’s acquaintance with other textual traditions, mainly Vyākaraṇa, Pūrva Mīmāṃsā and Nyāya. (shrink)

In this lesson I explore the question of moral epistemology by way of the thought of Plato, Aristotle and the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā tradition.

This Work Deals With The Foundational Concepts Ethics In Their Origin And Development. The Three Dimensions Of Mortality I.E., Social, Religious And Spiritual, Are Brought To The Light As Dealt By Manu Smrti, Jaimini Sutras And Bhagavadgita Respectively. The Author Sincerely Endeavors To Construct The Philosophical World-View Presupposed And Developed By These Texts Of Special Reference. The Aim Of This Book Is To Present A Harmoniously Interwoven Ethical Vision Which Is Peculiarly Indian And Its Form And Content. The Lucid Style (...) And Elaborate Discussion Of The Subject Matter Make The Book Useful And Interesting Not Only For The Students Of Philosophy But Also For The Common Readership Untrained In Philosophy. Contents Chapter 1: Introduction, Chapter 2: Rta And The Ethics Of Antiquity, Chapter 3: Transition To Dharma, Chapter 4: Ethics Of Manu Dharma Sastra, Chapter 5: Ethics Of Purva Mimamsa, Ethics Of Bhagavad-Gita, Chapter 7: Conclusion. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage est la traduction française et l'explication du texte de la première section (pariccheda) du sixième chapitre (prakarana) de la Prakaranapancika de Salikanatha. Ce penseur (fin 8e - début 9e s. de n.è.) est un représentant de l'école philosophique brahmanique orthodoxe nommée Mimamsa, 'investigation' considérée d'abord comme une exégèse du devoir relatif à l'ordre (dharma) rituel (karman) védique. Toutefois, à partir des 6e-7e siècles, lors de l'offensive idéologique du brahmanisme contre le bouddhisme, à côté de l'investigation dite 'seconde' (Uttara-M.) (...) du Vedanta sankarien portant, elle, sur la question du brahman et du [soi] incarné (sariraka), la Mimamsa 'première' (Purva-M.), par la voix de deux de ses docteurs, Prabhakara et Kumarila, a développé une épistémologie et une métaphysique propres, qui, en général, réfutent les positions bouddhiques, même si, à l'occasion, elle en adopte certaines. (shrink)

This paper attempts to articulate certain inadequacies that are involved in the traditional way of categorizing Indian philosophy and explores alternative approaches, some of which otherwise are not explicitly seen in the treatises of the history of Indian Philosophies. By categorization, I mean, classifying Indian philosophy into two streams, which are traditionally called as astica and nastica or orthodox and heterodox systems. Further, these different schools in the astica Darsanas and nastica Darsanas are usually numbered into six and three respectively. (...) Nyaya - Vaisesika, Sankhya -Yoga and Purva & Uttara Mimamsa are identified as astica darsanas and Carvaka, Buddhism and Jainism are identified as nastica darsanas (6+3). It is my endeavor to critically analyze the usual astica-nastica distinction of 6+3 classification of Indian philosophy so as to find out the meaning of such a rationale in this categorization. This general consensus is contested in this paper. What I am intended to support and strengthen such a critical analysis and exploration is to discuss these systems of India’s philosophy within the general intellectual milieu of Indian cultural traditions, its orientations, presuppositions and preferences. In order to carry out such a task, I shall be taking recourse to the theories of different scholars, both traditional and modern, in approaching and appropriating Indian Philosophy from different perspectives and their critical-creative approaches shall be scrutinized. (shrink)

Study of Bhāvanaviveka of Maṇḍanamiśra, work on the Purva-mīmāṃsā doctrine of causation.

The article concerns a mediaeval Indian debate over whether, and if so how, we can know that a self exists, understood here as a subject of cognition that outlives individual cognitions, being their common substrate. A passage that has not yet been translated from Sanskrit into a European language, from Jayanta Bhaṭṭa’s Nyāyamañjarī, ‘Blossoms of Reasoning’, is examined. This rich passage reveals something not yet noted in secondary literature, namely that Mīmāṃsakas advanced four different models of what happens when the (...) self perceives itself. The article clarifies the differences between the four, and the historical and logical relationships between them. It also hypothesizes pressures that constituted the need for the creation of the newer views, i.e. perceived problems with the earlier views, which the proponents of the newer views saw themselves as overcoming. (shrink)

This essay argues that whereas Mīmāṃsaka commentator Uṃvekabhaṭṭa puts forth an externalist interpretation of svataḥ prāmāṇya, the later interpretation thereof due to Pārthasārathimiśra is distinctly internalist in flavor. Specifically, it is argued that Pārthasārathimiśra's position can most aptly be construed as a form of phenomenal conservatism à la Michael Huemer, and thus that it is consistent with a form of internalism called Appearance Internalism.

Over the course of more than two millennia the philosophical school of Mīmāṃsā has thoroughly analyzed normative statements. In this paper we approach a formalization of the deontic system which is applied but never explicitly discussed in Mīmāṃsā to resolve conflicts between deontic statements by giving preference to the more specific ones. We first extend with prohibitions and recommendations the non-normal deontic logic extracted in Ciabattoni et al. from Mīmāṃsā texts, obtaining a multimodal dyadic version of the (...) deontic logic \. Sequent calculus is then used to close a set of prima-facie injunctions under a restricted form of monotonicity, using specificity to avoid conflicts. We establish decidability and complexity results, and investigate the potential use of the resulting system for Mīmāṃsā philosophy and, more generally, for the formal interpretation of normative statements. (shrink)

Festschrift honoring Mandana Misra, b. 1929, Sanskrit philosopher; comprises articles chiefly on Mimamsa school in Hindu philosophy.

Centered around the analysis of the prescriptive portion of the Vedas, the Sanskrit philosophical school of Mīmāṃsā provides a treasure trove of normative investigations. We focus on the leading Mīmāṃsā authors Prabhākara, Kumārila and Maṇḍana, and discuss three modal logics that formalize their deontic theories. In the first part of this paper, we use logic to analyze, compare and clarify the various solutions to the _śyena_ controversy, a two-thousand-year-old problem arising from seemingly conflicting commands in the Vedas. In (...) the second part, the formalized Mīmāṃsā theories are analyzed and employed to provide alternative perspectives on well-known paradoxes from the contemporary field of deontic logic. Thus, we go from logic to Mīmāṃsā and back again. (shrink)

The article offers an overview of the deontic theory developed by the philosophical school of Mīmāṃsā, which is, and has been since the last centuries BCE, the main source of normative concepts in Sanskrit thought. Thus, the Mīmāṃsā deontics is interesting for any historian of philosophy and constitutes a thought-provoking occasion to rethink deontic concepts, taking advantage of centuries of systematic reflections on these topics. Some comparison with notions currently used in Euro-American normative theories and metaethical principles is (...) offered in order to show possible points of contact and deep divergences. In more detail, after an introduction explaining the methodology and aims of our work, we discuss how Mīmāṃsā authors distinguished and defined some fundamental deontic concepts, such as different types of prescriptions and prohibitions. We then discuss how Mīmāṃsā authors approached the problem of conflicts among commands without jeopardising the validity of the normative text issuing them. In the second part of the article we introduce our formal apparatus, which is construed around the main taxonomic and conceptual distinctions used in the first part. Our formal rendering captures the most important features of the Mīmāṃsā theory and can thus serve as a concise and rigorous presentation of it for scholars working in deontic logic. (shrink)

Mīmāṁsā, an Indian hermeneutics provides an exhaustive methodology to interpret Vedic statements. A formalism namely, Mīmāṁsā Inspired Representation of Actions has already been proposed in a preliminary manner. This paper expands the formalism logically and includes Syntax and Semantics covering Soundness and Completeness. Here, several interpretation techniques from Mīmāṁsā have been considered for formalising the statements. Based on these, instructions that denote actions are categorized into positive and prohibitive unconditional imperatives and conditional imperatives that enjoin reason, temporal action and goal. (...) These instructions are evaluated to three values S, V and N. If the instruction is executed with the intention of goal, then it acquires the value of S; if the intention of goal is present and the instruction is not executed, then it assumes the value of V; and if there is no intention of goal, then the instruction is evaluated to N. This formalism has also been applied in different computational settings such as AI planning, Robotics, task analysis and classification of natural language instructions. An outline of these applications and the comparison of this formalism with other relevant theories are also presented in this paper. (shrink)

The Mīmāṃsā mission of disambiguating Vedic texts led the thinkers of the tradition to confront several instances of apparently conflicting Vedic commands. Consider the two cases: ‘give alms daily’ vs ‘do not give alms during ritual X’, and ‘never harm another’ vs ‘sacrifice an animal during ritual Y’. Each command in these two cases is derived from the Vedas and Mīmāṃsā authors thus attempted to resolve such cases of deontic conflict by putting forth hermeneutic solutions, without taking recourse (...) to any other epistemic source. In this paper, I present several instances of conflicting Vedic commands and indicate three distinct types of deontic conflicts as well as their corresponding solutions as identified by Mīmāṃsā thinkers. This study is based on discussions put forth in four important Mīmāṃsā texts: the Pūrvamīmāṃsāsūtra, the Śābarabhāṣya, Kumārila’s Ṭupṭīkā and Āpadeva’s Mīmāṃsānyāyaprakāśa. I explain the foundational difference between prescriptions and prohibitions for Mīmāṃsā thinkers, and thereby also discuss several technical conceptions such as paryudāsa, vikalpa, prāpti and bādha among others. In doing so, I attempt to highlight certain fundamental tenets of the vast and intricate hermeneutic framework developed within the Mīmāṃsā tradition. (shrink)

On Hindu ethics and code of conduct in Hindu smr̥tis.